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100+ iPhone Games That Use the Accelerometer

The iPhone's built-in accelerometer has opened up a new world of mobile gaming, introducing fun, engaging, and interactive applications from virtual golf to racing games, mobile beer pong, and more.

Here are over 100 free and paid apps that are worth checking out, especially if you're looking for ways to waste some time, say in line at the grocery store, or in the car on your way to some holiday festivities this year.

Tell us about your favorites in the comments.

Free Apps

You can get these apps for free, no strings attached. You can also find some "lite" versions of some paid applications.

Top Rated

Cube Runner (4.5 stars) – In this game, you “fly your ship across a landscape whilst avoiding the many treacherous cubes which lie in your path.” It’s like a flight simulator where everything is made of cubes.

PapiJump (4 stars) - Tilt your device to move Mr. Papi to the left and right to get him higher and higher towards the goal.

Touch4 (3.5 stars): Remember Connect 4? Here it is in all its iPhone/iPod glory. It’s multi-player and works over Wi-Fi. Okay, so the only accelerometer feature is shaking out the pieces, but that’s a game in itself, right?

JellyCar (3.5 stars): Possibly one of the hardest but addicting games that uses the accelerometer. In this game, you guide a little squishy car through squishy worlds trying to reach the exit

Pretty Cool

iGolf (3 stars): Swing your iPhone like a golf club and the accelerometer gauges how fast you swung and how far your shot will travel.

iBowl (3 stars): Swing your iPhone like you would to throw a bowling ball and see how many strikes you can get.

Snowball (3 stars): Tilt your device to slide a penguin across some ice to keep him alive. The goal is to collect as many snowflakes as you can.

Space Path (2.5 stars): Use the accelerometer to stay balanced on the “space path” while you watch out for space junk and meteorites.

Scroll Driver (2.5 stars): Navigate your car along a straight road while avoiding obstacles – without crashing. The car points in the direction of the tilt when moving forward.

Square Jams (2.5 stars): Use the accelerometer to guide balls into hills. The description says it will “test your surgeon-like skills and patience.” Now that’s marketing!

Oh My Egg! (2.5 stars): Use the accelerometer in this game to guide a fat little chicken named Jack who can’t jump or fly and needs to collect eggs.

Silkworm 3-D (2.5 stars): Steer a silkworm using the accelerometer so that it can eat apples before the silkworm gets too long. Similar to the TiltSnake app, but with better graphics and more challenges.

iThrown (2.5 stars): The “game” in this app is trying not to destroy your iPhone while testing how fast you can throw a ball. Just hold onto your iPhone for dear life and throw a pitch.

Two-Up (2.5 stars): Gamble like the Australians when you use your device to toss two coins in the air and bet on the results.

Fire Tail (2.5 stars) - Capture different parts of your game "territory" to win in this game. Use the accelerometer to move or use the touch screen.

Worth a look

PocketHoops (2 stars): This is a simple physics-based basketball game that uses the accelerometer to influence gravity and bounce your ball off walls and perform trick shots.

Apache Lander (2 stars): Use the accelerometer in this game to land your helicopter safely on a heli-pad before you run out of fuel.

TiltSnake (2 stars): Modeled after the time-proven arcade game “Snake,” the accelerometer is used in this game to pilot a snake that needs to eat food in order to grow. As the snake gets bigger, you have to move faster, you remember the game.

Handy Snake (2 stars): Another “Snake” app. You use the accelerometer to control a snake who’s trying to catch rabbits while avoiding spiky creatures and a hungry mongoose.

iSKBan3D (1.5 stars): You are a cube of smiling ice in a space-world. The goal is for you to use the accelerometer to move along a path and push stones to where they belong on the path.

Beer Pong PRO (1.5 stars): This game utilizes the accelerometer to capture your arm motion when throwing the ping-pong ball. It’s multi-player too, so who needs a ping-pong table and plastic cups when you can just flick your wrist and take a swig from the bottle?

Apocalypse (1.5 stars): You are Go Go, an eye creature who must collect crystals while flying around avoiding falling enemies (by tilting) on his hoverboard.

Paid Apps

These apps range from $0.99 to $9.99. Most of them have free equivalents, but look out for the ones that have a "lite" version.

Top Rated

HupplePupple (5 stars): Tilt your device to guide a jumping smiley face around different worlds trying to collect hearts to bring to his girlfriend.

Crazy Egg Jump (5 stars): You're an egg and you must tilt your device to navigate your way into empty flying nests.

Python (5 stars): One of several “Snake” replicas for the iPhone where you use the accelerometer to move your snake around while eating fish and avoiding your own tail.

2079 (4.5 stars): This spaceship shooting game plays like the famed “Geometry Wars” and uses the accelerometer for movement.

DizzyBee (4.5): One of the more addicting games (in my opinion) is DizzyBee where you guide a fat little bee to save his fat little fruit friends by avoiding hairball-looking mean faces. Its also has a free version, but the paid game is worth the buy.

Gaia (4.5 stars): Rotate your device to eliminate blocks that come into your way while playing through 20 hand-illustrated nature themed puzzles

Zone Warrior (4.5 stars): Part space flight, part arcade action, use the accelerometer to guide your spaceship in this game.

Scoops (4.5 stars): Stack your cone high into the sky by tilting your device left and right, catching as many scoops as you can and avoiding falling vegetables.

SolarQuest (4 stars): A space game where you “explore, duck and dodge” your way around to escape the planet’s gravitational pull.

Alien Attack (4 stars): Defend the earth from alien invaders by tilting the device from left to right in order to move your spaceship.

Asphalt 4: Elite Racing (4 stars): Use your device as a steering wheel to become the “ultimate VIP of urban racing”.

Kitten Jump (4 stars): Tilt your device to help a kitten jump from cloud to cloud while eating up butterflies and counting stars. Yup, I’m not kidding.

Beer Pong U (4 stars): A beer pong game that uses the accelerometer for aiming and throwing to “play beer pong on the go." Because that’s what beer pong was made for, right?

De Blob (4 stars): Using the accelerometer, you can swoosh around as a blob and grow in girth, weight and speed as you devour paint pellets. Then use the pellets to paint the monochromatic world in bright colors.

Pass the Pigs (4 stars): This is a dice game using pigs as the device. Using the accelerometer, you can “shake shake shake” and roll your pigs as you try to reach 100 points

3-D Vector Ball (3.5 stars): Battle your way through an electronic labyrinth and use your accelerometer to serve, deflect and spike your way to glory.

Nanosaur 2 (3.5 stars): Use the accelerometer to pilot a flying dinosaur from the future who is equipped with firepower to blow things up while retrieving missing dinosaur eggs.

Spore Origins (3.5 stars): Also available in a free “LE” version, you can tilt, turn and twist your custom-made creature through 30 levels of primordial ooze with the accelerometer.

Super Monkey Ball (3.5 stars): Guide a little monkey entrapped in a plastic ball to the goal by tilting your iPhone/iPod in the right direction and while collecting bananas though a variety of slopes and turns.

Super Pig (3.5 stars): Play as a pig with a jet pack, armed with a pebble shooter, trying to save the world from alien invaders.

Blue Skies (3.5 stars) – Also available in a free “lite” version, you can use the accelerometer in this game to pilot your helicopter and out-maneuver enemy tanks, planes, helicopters, blimps and mines.

SuperBall 2 (3.5 stars): Also available in a free “lite” version, this pong-type game uses tilt controls to maneuver the ball in 23 different levels.

iFroggy Prince (3.5 stars): A mix between Frogger and Labyrinth, use your device to tilt your way through levels to challenge both your reaction time and your brain.

Matrix (3.5 stars): Guide a tiny little man through a maze by tilting your device in the direction you want him to go.

Ball in a Cup (3.5 stars): Tilt your device left or right to fling a ball into a moving cup.

Draconis (3.5 stars): Tilt your phone to move and play this 2D/3D shoot-em-up space game through 5 different levels.

FlashRiders (3.5 stars): Race your flash cycle against a computer opponent and stay alive by using the accelerometer to turn your cycle and avoid the “Flash Trails,” obstacles and outer walls.

Tilt A Sketch (3.5 stars): This game uses the accelerometer to draw on a canvas using the constant pressure of gravity to ruin your work. Hard and extreme levels make it harder and harder to complete a picture.

TouchSports Tennis '09 (3.5 stars): Use your device as a racket and play tennis in this 3D sports action game.

AstroTilt (3.5 stars): This “Breakout”-type game uses the accelerometer in “tilt” mode to move the ball towards the blocks you want to break.

Aqua Forest (3.5 stars): Also available in a free “lite” version this is a very neat physics-based app where you can use the elements of nature, like water and heat to create realistic scenarios (like adding fire to water to create steam). It also has games where you use the elements to reach the end of a maze. Watch the YouTube video for a better look. It’s $7.99 but probably one of the better apps I’ve played around with.

Topple (3.5 stars): Stack and balance shapes and use the accelerometer to tilt your device and keep the blocks from tipping over.

Bubblets Tilt (3.5 stars) Arrange colored bubbles in a row to build your score before the bubbles reach the top. Use the accelerometer to tilt your screen to re-shift your bubbles into new groupings.

Plank (3.5 stars): Balance marbles on a log and try to match colors using the accelerometer to win in this game.

Virus (3.5 stars): Also available in a free “lite” version, this game utilizes real-time physics, blood-flow simulation and depth of field to defeat “viruses.”

Tilt Me (3.5 stars): Tilt your divide to roll some balls around mazes while making music as the balls collide with the walls and floor.

Shooter (3.5 stars): Shoot flying objects passing through day to night in different place, cities or landscapes using the accelerometer.

Pretty Cool

Cow Hunt (3 stars): This hunting game uses the accelerometer to aim at different types of cows which include army cows that parachute down, ninja cows, and cows with forcefields.

Cube Runner II (3 stars) – Much like the original free Cube Runner, you “fly your ship across a landscape whilst avoiding the many treacherous cubes which lie in your path,” except this time, the accelerometer also accounts for how fast you’re going by either tipping forwards or backwards.

Hooked: Pocket Fishing (3 stars): Catch some fish with this game that uses the accelerometer to cast and catch fish.

twistedBugs (3 stars): Try to kill as many bugs as you can within 60 seconds while the accelerometer moves bugs around.

Armado (3 stars) – Also available in a free “lite” version, Armado is from the developers of Spore Origins for the iPod and iPhone. The accelerometer in this game guides Armado (an armadillo) as he rolls, jumps and crashes his way through this 3-D game with pretty impressive graphics.

Venger (3 stars): Also available in a free “lite” version, Venger is a 3-D space shooter. The accelerometer is used to steer your spaceship through trenches, tunnels and asteroid fields.

Moto Chaser (3 stars) – This is a motorcycle game with turns and jumps all steered by the accelerometer. Reviews claim that the accelerometer is “spot on.”

RhinoBall (3 stars) - Play as Rhino the hamster from the new Disney movie "Bolt."

iFish (3 stars): A fishing game where you can catch over 50 different types of fish. The accelerometer controls casting and hooking.

GTS World Racing (3 stars): Accelerate, brake and steer using the accelerometer around 64 track layouts in 16 different worldwide locations.

Worth a Look

Catch the Egg (2.5 stars): Try to catch eggs that are falling from the sky. The accelerometer determines whether or not you catch the egg. Reviewers seem to agree that buying a carton of eggs would be more worth the money though.

Bubble Trap (2.5 stars): Trap bugs inside of bubbles using the accelerometer to guide the bubbles.

Wings Flight Simulator Experience (2.5 stars): Probably the most visually-appealing of the flight simulators, you can use the accelerometer in this game to coast around the 3-D world of over 50,000 square miles.

Crash Landing (2.5 stars): Tilt your iPhone to land your shuttle safely on a platform or the moon. The accelerometer controls the thrust, speed, angle and position.

AutoMangle (2.5 stars): Also available in a free “lite” version, this game totes itself as an “addictive vehicular combat game” with 192 different gameplay configurations. In general, the accelerometer is used for steering.

Beach Volleyball (2.5 stars): Play volleyball with your accelerometer while listening to your own music and soaking up the digital rays.

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